Media players have become extraordinarily popular during the past several years. As a result, accessories that operate with these media players have proliferated. These accessories include speaker systems, remote controls, FM tuners and transmitters, chargers, as well as a myriad of others. The result is that currently many different accessories are made by many different manufacturers.
These manufacturers have developed test methods to ensure that their accessories are compatible with one or more of these media players. To date, testing has been typically limited to testing an accessory with a media player attached. However, some real-world events may happen only on rare occasions, too infrequently for reliable testing. Moreover, the operation of a media player may later change after a software or firmware update. This may result in a change in the operability of an accessory with a media player.
To avoid this circumstance, specifications for these accessories have been developed. An accessory manufacturer needs to meet these specifications in order to claim compliance with one or more particular media players. Unfortunately, some accessories may not meet one or more of these specifications. Such a violation may go unnoticed if during testing with a media player, the specification violation does not cause an actual error. However, at a later time, the software or firmware of the media player, or the media player itself, may be updated. The previously unnoticed specification violation may then cause an error when the accessory operates with the updated device.
This is highly undesirable for the manufacturer of the media player. If an update causes a media player to operate incorrectly with an accessory, a consumer is likely to place blame with the media player manufacturer that provided the update, rather than the accessory manufacturer that made an accessory having a specification violation.
Thus, what is needed are circuits, methods, and apparatus for testing accessories that can determine whether an accessory is violating one or more of these specifications. It is further desirable that testing include tests for occurrences that occur infrequently when using a media player.